Apropos a lot of things

Another poem from F. Ohler's collection Better Than Nice and Other Unconventional Prayers

Life Is God-Sized

We bring our idols;

You are God.

We come with our theologies;

You are "God only wise."

We keep trying to reduce life to size

with our theology

our biology

our psychology

with all our ologies...

and

You elude our logic

You burst our boxes.

For that we praise You

and rejoice

that life is God-sized

never fully understood

drenched in mysteries

more startling than all our systems.

Humble us all

lest we shrink Your world to what WE know

or can handle.

Help us each

to let it be as unruly

wild

and grace-full

as it is.

Loosen us

to dance with joy

and to wail with sorrow

to laugh to cry to celebrate to grieve.

Help us

not only to be caught by the exceptional

but to be stunned by the ordinary

to marvel at what we call "common"--

sparrow

the people

sense

touch

and all the small and daily blessings.

My God

how incredible that we are here (and not a million OTHER places)

that we are together

that we are alive

that we are at all.

Keep us

young expectant unsure open

nervous sensitive

and alive...

at whatever age

amen.

Remembering Brian Ellis, 1978-2010

A graduate school trench-mate died this past weekend in a tragic accident.

I first encountered Brian in 2004 in a class on the neurobiology of sociality. He was an anthropology student at the time. I don't know that I actually met him, but he was the tall guy with a long blonde pony tail and eventually, I matched him to interesting questions on our class discussion board.

In 2005, we met finally in Alan Fiske's office as we were presented an opportunity to collect some interesting research observations in families coping with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). That summer Brian, Lisa, and I faced the byzantine labyrinth that is the UCLA IRB process so that we would have institutional approval to conduct this research. Brian did most of the heavy lifting, and then he left grad school to go to France.

When he came back about a year later, he joined my department, applied linguistics and also returned to the FTD project. Alan asked Lisa and I if we were okay with his return. I guess the thought was that so much work had been done in his absence would we be willing to share those results with him. For me, it would have been impossible to think of denying him a position on the team. The IRB process was brutal and he took on so much of that; I always felt like I owed him alot. In fact, as the editors of Lang, Int, and FTD were discussing who to invite to contribute chapters, Brian was an immediate, easy pick. (He ultimately decided to pursue other interests.) Shortly after he came back to the program, I began the being-on--campus-less-and-less phase, and I saw him less and less until my last year when we met again on a schizophrenia project.

One of the best things about Brian is that he had his passions. Rock climbing and the outdoors was a huge passion for him. He made it a priority to be out and about and enjoy what he enjoyed. I remember visiting his apartment years ago and it had a piano in it. I always liked that he made the effort to have that in his life since I too played the piano and never bothered. Intellectually, if he got interested in something, he read deeply and thought deeply. As a friend and colleague, Brian's priorities could cause intense frustration when they didn't match my own. After he came back from France, he seemed to have a chronic inability to stay on top of emails and show up on time to scheduled meetings. And rock climbing trips on weekends made him inaccessible when the rest of us were slaving away and might want his input on something. But honestly, you've got to admit that flickering computer screens don't hold a candle to the sweeping vistas of California national parks.

The Byrd's song Turn, Turn, Turn is taken from the book of wisdom, Ecclesiates, attributed to King Solomon. Taking up from where the song ends, the author continues by saying "[God] has also set eternity in the hearts of men." When I think of all the beauty that Brian encountered in his life, I think he understood eternity. One thing Brian always brought to our research was the persistent reminder of the humanity of our subjects. The nature of our work brought us face to face with the little everyday tragedies of living with a diseased mind. Whenever we put up too much defensive distance, Brian would call us back to people as people. In this too, I think he was sensitive to the eternal in each of us.

But this notion of eternity is also what makes his death feel unacceptable. There are no more days for Brian. He's not going to pet his bunnies, climb another pitch, love on his girl, or tickle and teach the kids he never had. Death thumbs its nose at eternity. Our hearts cry out and say, "There is more to life than what we can see and hold." And death says, "Oh yea?"

I don't have any grand finale conclusion about things. I had hoped to hear of many more Brian adventures over the years. Mostly, I think I'm just in shock still. I'll just leave off with the rest of that bit from Ecclesiastes.

9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.
~Ecclesiastes, chpt 3

Source material for the Byrd's song